Second Crusade | European history | Britannica (original) (raw)

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major reference

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  In Crusades: The Second Crusade
  It had long been apparent that Edessa was vulnerable, but its loss came as a shock to Eastern and Western Christians. Urgent pleas for aid soon reached Europe, and in 1145 Pope Eugenius III issued a formal Crusade bull, Quantum praedecessores (“How Much…
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Damascus, Siege of

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  In Siege of Damascus
  The defeat of the Second Crusade at Damascus ensured that the Christian crusader states in the Holy Land would remain on the defensive for the foreseeable future. There was no longer any realistic prospect of expansion so the Christians were confined to small states surrounded by larger and more…
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role of St. Bernard

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  In St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Pillar of the church
  …promote the cause of a Second Crusade (1147–49) to quell the prospect of a great Muslim surge engulfing both Latin and Greek Orthodox Christians. The Crusade ended in failure because of Bernard’s inability to account for the quarrelsome nature of politics, peoples, dynasties, and adventurers. He was an idealist with…
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